Safety and Effectiveness of Intra-coronary Nitrite in Acute Myocardial Infarction
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2016-01-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Despite advances in the treatment of heart attacks the complications and death rates from
failure of the heart to pump properly after treatment remain high. A heart attack occurs when
one or more of the arteries that supply blood to the heart become blocked, causing the heart
to be starved of oxygen and nutrients. This results in damage to the heart and so the the
heart pumps less well. The main treatment for a heart attack is balloon treatment to open the
blocked artery (called primary angioplasty). Whilst re-opening the artery is essential and
allows blood to flow to the area of the heart starved of oxygen, this process also causes
damage itself (called reperfusion injury) and increases the size of the heart attack further.
Currently there are no treatments available that reduce this reperfusion injury. The
investigators and others have shown that a substance called sodium nitrite reduces
reperfusion injury in experimental models of a heart attack. The aim of this research is to
perform a trial to investigate whether during a heart attack, an infusion of sodium nitrite
into the damaged artery protects against reperfusion injury and reduces heart attack size in
patients.